The Center Square

Morgan Sweeney | July 27, 2023 (The Center Square) — More than 1,100 people registered to attend the 2023 Virginia School Safety Training Forum, which will address roughly 20 topics pertaining to school safety and student well-being. The Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and its Center for School and Campus Safety partner with several other organizations, […]

Morgan Sweeney | July 21, 2023 (The Center Square) — Virginia entered the fiscal year on July 1 without a revised budget for the first time in over 20 years due to a lack of consensus in the General Assembly – to the tune of roughly $1 billion. Virginia operates on a two-year budget that

Morgan Sweeney | July 13, 2023 (The Center Square) – The Virginia Board of Education took another step in its efforts toward improving students’ literacy when it approved a new list of core instructional programs for grades K-3 on Thursday. “I believe that the Board of Education’s vote to approve these research-based literacy programs will prove

Morgan Sweeney | July 12, 2023 (The Center Square) — A report released Monday indicates Virginia’s K-12 education system has received inadequate state funding for years — and Republicans and Democrats are blaming each other for the results. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission staff reviewed Virginia’s K-12 funding formula – the mechanism used to

Sarah Roderick-Fitch | June 8, 2023 (The Center Square) – The Virginia Department of Education released a report on recommendations for the General Assembly, and the status of the commonwealth’s commitment to promote excellence in education. Leaders and stakeholders met to evaluate and recommend specific policies and performance standards for public education in the commonwealth. The

Sarah Roderick-Fitch | May 22, 2023 (The Center Square) – Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has joined nearly two dozen state attorneys general imploring the Biden administration to protect female athletes by upholding Title IX. The opposition from the coalition follows a proposal from the Department of Education to allow biological males to compete in

Sarah Roderick-Fitch | May 16, 2023 (The Center Square) – Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has announced a grant program to improve student safety by beefing up security infrastructures in schools of higher needs. The Stronger Connections program is a $16.4 million competitive grant program aimed at improving school security to curb assaults on schools, which

Madison Hirneisen | February 18, 2022 A panel of Virginia state Senate lawmakers defeated a torrent of Republican-backed education bills Thursday, including measures to require schools to maintain a catalog and identify library books with “graphic sexual content,” and prevent transgender students from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity.  The Democrat-majority Senate Committee

Madison Hirneisen | February 12, 2023 (The Center Square) – The Virginia Department of Education could soon form a work group to consider competitive teacher pay in the commonwealth under a bill receiving bipartisan support in the General Assembly.  A substitute version of Senate Bill 1215 directs the Department of Education to convene a work